The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is asking the company to “re-review its communications” to make sure messages are consistent with user instructions.
The request came in an email sent to the company in May from Gregory Magno, a division chief in the agency's Office of Wrongs Investigation. It was attached to a letter requesting information regarding an investigation into accidents involving Tesla's “Full Self-Driving” system in low visibility conditions. The letter was posted on the agency's website on Friday.
The agency launched the investigation in October after receiving reports of four accidents involving “full self-driving” when Teslas encountered sun glare, fog and wind-blown dust. An Arizona pedestrian was killed in a crash.
Critics, including Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, have long accused Tesla of using misleading names for its partially automated driving systems, including “full self-driving” and “autopilot,” both of which are considered completely ineffective by owners. It is considered autonomous in a way.
The letters and emails raise further questions about whether full self-driving will be ready for use on public roads without human drivers, as Tesla CEO Elon Musk has predicted. Much of the valuation of Tesla's stock depends on the company deploying a fleet of autonomous robotaxis.
Musk, who has previously promised autonomous vehicles, said the company plans to have autonomous Models Y and 3 running without human drivers next year. He said robotaxis without steering wheels will be available in California and Texas in 2026.
A message was sent Friday seeking comment from Tesla.
In the email, Magno writes that Tesla informed the agency in April about offering a free trial of “Full Self-Driving” and emphasized that an owner's manual, user interface and a YouTube video Tells humans that they have to be cautious. Complete control over their vehicles.
But Magno cited seven posts or reposts from Tesla's account on Musk-owned social media platform X, in which Magno indicated that full self-driving is capable of driving itself.
“Tesla's
The posting may encourage drivers to look at full self-driving, which now has the word “supervised” next to it in Tesla materials, so that the system is seen as a “driver or robotaxi” rather than a partial automation/driver assistance system, Which requires constant attention. and intermittent intervention by the driver,” Magno wrote.
For example, on April 11, Tesla reposted a story about a man who drove 13 miles (13 miles) from his home to an emergency room during a heart attack shortly after the free trial began on April 1. Used full self-driving to travel 21 kilometers). The full self-driving version helped get the owner to the hospital “when he needed immediate medical attention,” the post said.
Additionally, Tesla says on its website that the use of full self-driving and Autopilot without human supervision depends on “achieving reliability” and regulatory approval, Magno wrote. But the statement is accompanied by a video of a man driving on local roads with his hands on his knees, along with the statement, “The person in the driver's seat is there only for legal reasons, he is not driving the car himself.”
In the letter seeking information about driving in low visibility conditions, Magno wrote that the investigation would focus on the system's ability to perform in low visibility conditions caused by “relatively common traffic incidents.”
Drivers cannot be told by the car that they should decide where full self-driving can safely operate or fully understand the system's capabilities, he wrote.
“This investigation will consider the adequacy of the feedback or information provided to drivers by the system to enable them to make real-time decisions when exceeding the system's capacity,” Magno wrote.
The letter asks Tesla to describe all visual or audio warnings that drivers receive and that the system is “unable to detect and respond to any low visibility conditions.”
The agency has given Tesla until December 18 to respond to the letter, but the company may ask for an extension.
That means the investigation is unlikely to be over by the time President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January, and Trump has said he will put Musk in charge of a government efficiency commission to audit agencies and root out fraud. Musk spent at least $119 million on Trump's campaign to get elected, and Trump has spoken out against government regulations.
Auto safety advocates fear that if Musk gains some control over NHTSA, full self-driving and other investigations into Tesla could be derailed.
Musk also floated the idea of helping develop national safety standards for self-driving vehicles.
“Of course the fox wants to build a henhouse,” said Michael Brooks, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, a nonprofit watchdog group.
He said he could not think of anyone who would agree that a business mogul should have direct involvement in the regulations that affect the mogul's companies.
“This is actually a big problem for democracy,” Brooks said.
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First publication date: 10 November 2024, 10:38 am IST